03 August 2011, 10:21

I know this is probably a stupid question, but our users asked me to "install the Mahara update released at the end of June" and I can't see any downloads for updates or upgrades on the Mahara page, just downloads for the full installation (https://launchpad.net/mahara/1.4).  Am I missing something?  Is each upgrade released as a full isntallation?

Thanks.

04 August 2011, 3:21

Hi R O,

Yes, each 'upgrade' is in fact a full version. It would be extremely difficult to produce an upgrader to only upgrade certain files and be cross-platform compatible, and know about all previous versions with enough information to be able to safely upgrade.

The easiest method to upgrade would be to download the latest version (1.4.0) and uncompress it into a new folder. Then to copy over the config.php file from your live system to your new installation, and finally to swap the two around. You would also need to copy/upgrade any local customisations (e.g. themes, plugins, language customisations, and the 'local' folder).

So for example:

Current site at: /srv/www/my.mahara.org/htdocs
Download to: /srv/www/my.mahara.org/1.4.0

Then copy /srv/www/my.mahara.org/htdocs/config.php to /srv/www/my.mahara.org/1.4.0

Then move /srv/www/my.mahara.org/htdocs to /srv/www/my.mahara.org/1.3.6_release; and
move /srv/www/my.mahara.org/1.4.0 to /srv/www/my.mahara.org/public_html

When you first visit the page, you'll be asked to upgrade. We highly recommend that you complete a full database backup before you upgrade. Database upgrades are irreversibly so if you decide to go back to the previous release you would have to revert to your database backup.

Andrew

04 August 2011, 9:30

Exactly what I needed to know, thanks for much.

04 August 2011, 3:41

Hello RO,

Yeah, as Andrew said, each upgrade is a full installation. In fact, to make upgrade easier you may use git and track the stable branch.

Say, to check out most recent stable version use

git clone git://gitorious.org/mahara/mahara.git

then cd to created mahara directory (which will be your mahara installation) and run

git checkout -b 1.4_STABLE origin/1.4_STABLE

at this point you created a local branch 1.4_STABLE that contain the tip of 1.4 release branch. Now, if something has been updated remotely, all you need to do is to run

git fetch origin

git pull origin 1.4_STABLE

and you are up-to-date with the most recent chnages. This does not modify your config.php and will work if you do not have local modifications of Mahara (if you have, then you would rather get familiar with git and you will be able to update mahara easilty preserving all your changes).

Now, say, mahara has been updated to 1.5. What you need to do is:

git fetch origin

git checkout -b 1.5_STABLE origin/1.5_STABLE

and that is it, you are on the new version, just login to Mahara and go through database upgrade process.

Hmm... I probably should create a wiki page on git upgrade procedures.

04 August 2011, 9:31

| Hmm... I probably should create a wiki page on git upgrade procedures.

Couldn't hurt... I've never done any of that before.  I used the suggestions above about just pasting the folders and copying the php config file and it worked out great, but thanks for your help as well!